Dying
by Payson-Nicky-forever
Summary: Two promises that Nicky Russo made to two people very important to him. Alphabet Challenge - D


**This story is the fifth story in the Alphabet Challenge. For those you that don't know, the Alphabet Challenge is a story writing contest I'm doing with Love's Crash Test Dummy.**

**Here's the rules for it:**

**1) We go through the alphabet writing stories based on a word that begins with each letter.**

**2) Although we are both doing 'A', we will start alternating each letter when I do 'B'. Then she will do 'C' and so on.**

**3) We always pick each other's word. (Except this time. We both picked our own.)**

**4) All stories have to be 500 words in length.**

**5) Five day time limit from when the other author posts her story.**

**6) My stories will always be Payson/Nicky and her's will always be Kaylie/Nicky.**

**After the contest is over, there will be a poll on both of our profile that ask which story in the contest is your favorite.**

**Check out the other 4 stories!**

**Alone by me**

**Apples by Love's Crash Test Dummy**

**Barbie by me**

**and Carnival by Love's Crash Test Dummy**

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**Dying**

Nicky Russo walked into the Rock at exactly five minutes before six o'clock. His usual routine was to drive his car, a BMW, to the Rock and get there at five thirty in the morning. Unfortunately for Nicky, his car was at the mechanic's shop, so he had been forced to run the entire three miles from his mansion on a hill in Boulder's richest neighborhood to the Rock. Not that Nicky minded the extra exercise.

When he stepped into the main gymnasium, Nicky was happy, but not at all surprised, to see a figure dressed in purple laying on her back on the mats used for practicing floor routines. He grinned a little and discarded his gym bag on the floor near the parallel bars, where he had intended to spend his entire extra gym time.

"Hey, Champ," he said to the girl. She didn't even turn around to see who was inturrupting her daydreaming. Nicky flopped down on his back across from her, with his head touching hers and his legs extending in the opposite direction of hers.

"You're here early," Payson replied distractedly.

Nicky made a confused face, which Payson could not see. "I'm actually late today. My car's screwed up, and I had to run all the way here."

"Oh. What time is it then?" she asked.

Rather than anwser her question, Nicky asked his own. "How long have you been here?"

"Since about 11 last night. Maybe 12. I don't know," Payson replied.

"You haven't slept?"

"I practiced for a while. Then I think I fell asleep for an hour or two."

"Is everything alright?" he asked with concern.

"No." Payson replied, not volunteering any details. She could feel Nicky nodding silently against her head. "You're not going to ask me what's wrong?" she asked him.

Nicky shook his head. "You'll tell me when you want to."

The two gymnasts sat in silence for a long time. Then Nicky, in a subtle act of impatience, flipped his body around so that he was laying directly beside Payson on the mat. Payson glanced in his direction briefly. Then she sighed quietly.

"My dad came to visit us from Minnesota last night," was the only explanation he received.

"That's good," he said, confused. "That is good, right?"

"Normally."

"What happened this time?"

Nicky waited on her reply, but then he heard her sniffle slightly. He looked over at her and saw a tear streaming down the side of her face closest to him. He flipped over onto his side, facing her. "Come on, Payson. It'll make you feel better to tell someone."

She flipped over too, and looked straight into his chocolate brown eyes with her teary ones. "The reason he came home," she said, pausing for a minute to try to regain control over her quivering voice. "was because he went to this doctor in Minnesota."

Nicky felt a sense of dread welling up inside of him. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to know the answer to his next question. "What kind of doctor?" he asked her.

"I don't know the exact name." Another pause. "But I know he was a cancer doctor."

Payson sat up the second the words left her mouth and pulled her knees up to her chest. Even if Nicky had needed to inquire further, Payson shut off all other questions by burying her head into her legs. Nicky leaned over, completely on impulse, wrapped his arm around her, and placed a gentle kiss on the top of her head.

"It's going to be okay, Payson. Everything's going to be okay," he muttered to her. Then he thought back to the hardest time in his life.

_Six year old Nicky was standing outside a room at Boulder General Hospital. He was on his tip toes trying desperatly to see through the window above his head. When he finally managed to grab hold of the window sill, Nicky used his already exceptional strength to pull himself into the narrow window sill._

_He peered through the glass and saw his mom, looking more frail than anyone the young boy had ever seen, laying in the hospital bed she had been confined to for weeks. His father was sitting in a chair beside her, gently stoking the top of her hand with his thumb as he held her hand lightly._

_Nicky's mother had been in the hospital for over two months. She hadn't been home since the day after Christmas, when her deterating health had caused the women, not even thirty years old, to fall down the stairs of their mansion and break her hip._

_Ever since that day, Nicky's dad, Dr. Russo, had brought his son to the hospital everyday after he picked him up from the expensive private school he attended. Nicky was usually forced to watch from the window, since his father was afraid it would 'scar' him to be in the room with his dying mother too often. As if watching from the window wasn't scarring enough._

_Nicky jumped down from window when he saw his father stand up from his chair. A few seconds late, Dr. Russo stepped out of the room and looked around for his son. He squatted down in front of his so that he was eye level with him._

_"Nicky," he said. "You're mother wants to talk to you. Alone."_

_Nicky nodded slowly, slightly confused. Anytime he had been allowed inside the room, his father had went inside with him. The little boy opened the door and went inside. His mother was smiling at him just as brightly as she had any other time in his entire life._

_"Hi, Sweetie," she said weakly._

_Nicky didn't reply. He just walked over to her bed and climbed onto it. Then he crawled over to her side, just as he had every other time he had visited her in the hospital._

_"I love you, Nicky," she told him in the same fragile voice._

_"I love you, too, Mommy," Nicky told her, just as he had every day of his life up until that horrible day after Christmas._

_Mrs. Russo reached around delicatly and cuddled her young son in her arms. "I wish you didn't have to go through this, my sweet heart. I wish I could be out of here, watching you grow up. I want to be able to watch you do gymnastics, help you get ready for your first date-"_

_"Ew. Girls are icky," little Nicky interrupted._

_Natelie Russo laughed. And it hurt her ribs, just above where the cancer inside her was eating away at her lungs. "You say that now, but someday you're going to meet a girl that turns those thoughts upside down."_

_"No girl could do that. I just want to win the Olympics."_

_"And I hope you do. But, Nicky, promise me something, darling," she said in that same low, fragile voice she had been speaking to him in for the duration of their conversation._

_"What, Mommy?" he asked her._

_"Promise me that no matter what happens to you in your life, you'll always be the same sweet, caring, compassionate little boy at heart as you are right now," Mrs. Russo said. "And that you won't be too caught up in your Olympic dream to pursue any other dream you may have."_

"I promise," Nicky whispered in Payson's ear after a moment. The blond girl looked up at him with her tear stained face. Nicky mentally took a deep breath, and, thinking of the promise he had made for than ten years previously and the promise he just made, Nicky gently pressed his lips against Payson's.

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**Not my best work. I know it's not, but I didn't have time to write a better one. My computer crashed, and I wrote this in about two hours today, Saturday. Sorry about the length of it and about it's suckyness.**

**PLEASE REVIEW!**


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